


In Adam’s Garden

by pixiealtaira



Category: Glee
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, mention of Finn's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:15:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25872721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiealtaira/pseuds/pixiealtaira
Summary: Adam's apartment is just about the best ever.This was take one of Hummel Holidays 2016 day 8-nature/trees.  It just didn't come together well and had to be rewritten several times.
Relationships: Adam Crawford/Kurt Hummel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	In Adam’s Garden

For Adam, the best parts of his current apartment were that the building was smallish and older, the neighbors were wonderful and had lived there forever for the most part, there were kids who were actually nice and good kids, and there was a back yard…with several trees and a garden and a bench to sit on and even some grass.

There was an elm tree and two apple trees and a cherry tree and in the corner was a pine tree of some sort. He could see it from his small balcony. The neighbors decorated it all year long for different seasons and it made Adam smile. In Spring, there were fairy lights covering it in purple and pink and light blue, by June they had been changed to red, white and blue. In October the neighbors changed the lights to orange and purple, and then in November they went to orange and yellow. In December, every tree was decked out in lights, Papa Bertoni sending Lou and Mark up the trees to wrap the trees whose leaves had fallen in red and white lights. But the Pine Tree was strung with multi colored lights and resting under it were wooden animal cutouts, painted with cheerful colors and cheerful faces. Every year Adam lived there, he watched as the Bertoni family and the Martin family decorated and cheered when they lit the backyard up with the rest of the neighbors. At the end of December the lights on the Pine Tree were switched to white and they stayed there until Spring.

Kurt first came over in February. He missed the Christmas lights that first year. The first day he came over, he first helped Mama Bertoni with bringing in some groceries and then he helped Papa Bertoni with a problem with his vehicle. Mama Bertoni declared him an angel on earth and invited him to their Friday meals, if he didn’t mind fish. Kurt said he’d love to make each that he could and to please tell him if he were no longer welcome, but he missed Friday Night Dinners.

In four years of living there Adam had been invited several times, but he didn’t have a standing invitation. He just racked it up to everyone else being able to see how absolutely wonderful Kurt was as well. Papa Bertoni spoke to Kurt about doing some work for him on some old cars during Kurt’s spring break. Kurt agreed to return right after his dad’s check-up to do it.

When Adam listened to Rachel screaming about how Kurt had ruined certain peoples plans, Adam was very glad Papa Bertoni gave Kurt a reason to come straight back to New York.

And the project gave Kurt something to do when his step-brother died. Kurt pretty much moved in that first week…after the second call from his father where the only thing anyone talked about was how Rachel was doing and feeling and tasking Kurt with looking after her, even if he had to skip classes and work and go without sleep himself to take care of her and ease her distress. Adam held Kurt as he cried in the night, woken by nightmares and other dreams. Adam made sure Kurt ate, and made it to classes, and showered and did his homework. He made sure Kurt made it to work.

Adam even made sure Rachel and Santana were eating and getting where they needed to get.

Mama Bertoni taught Kurt to knit, and spoke about her own loss of her brother when she was about his age. She asked Kurt about Finn’s favorite color. The Pine Tree was lit in Red lights for two weeks. Mama Bertoni helped Kurt pick out a new tree to plant with the others. They planted it the day Kurt got home from the memorial.

Adam had his mum send Mama Bertoni’s favorite teas from England. She just patted his face and told him that love sticks it through; in sadness and joyfulness it shows itself…in deeds, in actions.

The school year rushed and roared to a close and Adam finished and presented his senior project. Kurt helped as he could while finishing his own classes. Rachel rubbed it in that her dads had got her a bereavement pass. Adam went and asked about it, Kurt was the one related after all, but was informed that Kurt’s status a step-brother wasn’t close enough according to Madame Tibideaux. The other deans would have accepted it, but Madame was the one over Kurt due to his academic focus and she said no.

She was the one who said yes to Rachel’s dads’ request. Adam asked if she understood that Rachel and Finn had not been together as a couple for at least nine months. In fact Rachel hadn’t even been speaking to him because she was upset with him. Adam was told that he shouldn’t stick his nose where it didn’t belong and she still wasn’t going to give Kurt any passes. Adam reported her and the issue to the dean of the drama department and asked him to keep an eye on Kurt after Adam was out. Apparently Madame’s response was enough to make the other deans agree, well that and her behavior regarding Rachel Berry all ready.

Kurt passed with flying colors even in his grief and having missed some classes and Adam did well enough to be accepted into a Masters program in Theater Education and Theater as Therapy through NYU.

Kurt offered to go home for the summer and help out. His dad was unavailable when he called. Carole instead told him he had until the third week in June to get his stuff from the house or she would get rid of it all. They were pretty sure they were going to sell the house, after all. Kurt’s dad called him a few hours later, just to explain Carole’s demands. Kurt’s dad just told him things were too hard living where Finn had lived and that they probably would move, and so Kurt should go get his stuff. Carole was going to be visiting relatives throughout June and so he should do so then, so his presence wouldn’t cause her to backtrack in her grief (a possibility when confronted with other living children of a similar age as one’s own, at least according to the Reverend Carole had met after Finn died and whose church she was now attending).

Papa and Mama Bertoni paid for a plane ticket so Adam could go with Kurt.

Adam was slightly disturbed to find out Kurt already owned a storage unit…let alone two.

“I had Dad’s co-worker Cassius help me during my dad’s first ‘purge’, when I was 10,” Kurt explained. “The first year after my mom died my dad didn’t have time...take time…whatever…to do much other than the lawsuits he was involved in. That was good, probably. He funneled his anger and fury and denial and everything into those. They won them, him and the other families involved. The next year, he started packing things up and away, talking about getting rid of stuff. At that point it was clothing and items like that…they would just go away. I would later see new boxes in the garage. Holiday stuff wouldn’t be brought out, we just got new stuff. Then he went on a ‘spring clean’ rant and said we were purging everything. There was furniture of my mother’s that I wanted to keep, much of it antiques. Dad couldn’t look at anything that reminded him of her back then and it had kept disappearing into the garage at the house. I heard him call someone to come cart it away. I called Cassius before they could and he came up with the idea. We put everything my dad said needed away in the storage unit…including all the holiday stuff. Gradually my dad let things come back into the house…books and shelves, the vanity, the record player and all the records, old movies and the VHS player, the china cabinet…Christmas movies. The piano never left, neither did the sewing machine. Cassius lit into Dad when he tried to make me get rid of those. Dad kept some of my early awards for things like talent shows or competitions and a few books, but most of my mom’s stuff left the house then. Then we had to purge the house of too much of our stuff the first time Carole and Finn tried to move in. Dad removed all my trophies and certificates and prizes and most the photos and most the books and all the records and the record player. He was going to toss it all…apparently seeing all my stuff like that would have made Finn and Carole uncomfortable. I boxed it all and moved it. It never came back even after that didn’t work out. Dad told me to bring it back in, but I was mad and not giving in. I removed all the old movies and the VHS as well. Then Dad and Carole got married and Carole and Finn moved in again…for a tiny bit before we all moved to a new house were Finn could have enough of his own space so not to feel too close to me. There was another purge at that point and then when we moved. Before the move I boxed and stored all my CDs and DVDs that I didn’t want Finn messing with and all my books and games and things like that. In the move I moved the China cabinet and the piano to their own climate controlled storage unit, and I moved all the rest of the furniture from the first storage unit there as well. Cassius helped again and as soon as I turned 18 we got them signed completely over to me, insured and paid upfront for 10 years. There is room in both still. We’ll put the shelves and bed frame in with the furniture and box everything else and put it in the regular unit.”

Kurt introduced Adam to everyone at the garage and to his dad. Kurt and his dad had a good visit…even around all the tiptoeing done around discussion of Carole and Finn and Finn’s death. His dad had him take more than his bedroom stuff to storage, shelves and books and several chairs and stools from the main living areas. Kurt’s room was packed in a day and the rest of Kurt’s stuff moved to storage the day after that.

Adam said nothing about the fact that although Kurt seemed to be required to remove his stuff, Finn’s room was still there and filled with furniture and other items and that Sam still had a room made up for him.

Kurt’s dad promised to come see him the next time he had a break while he was at Washington that wasn’t long enough to make going to Lima a good deal but was long enough for a day or weekend trip…and Carole wasn’t with him.

Papa Bertoni had a new old car waiting to be worked on when Adam and Kurt got back to New York and Mama Bertoni decided to teach Kurt how to quilt.

Kurt took summer classes so he could be caught up and enter the next school year as a sophomore in fall. Adam found a job working with a children’s summer theater camp group. Rachel lorded over everyone that she got the part in Funny Girl and Kurt only spent time at the loft while she wasn’t there during the day. He went home to the loft around midnight and he left the loft at 6am. He worked hours at the Diner, and Vogue.com, and as a tutor for the kids who live in Adam’s apartment building. What little free time he had was spent at Adam’s place.

Kurt was there to see the pine tree in the back decorated in red, white and blue for the fourth of July and to join the Bertonis and Martins for their annual July 4th picnic. Finn’s tree had taken and was growing.

At the start of August, Kurt organized a community fashion show as a fund raiser when he found out that many of the kids in Adam’s building and the buildings near it were having problems getting the funds for their religious schools after a grant that had helped ran out and that their local public schools had all been closed a few years before and so they had to be bused out to schools that weren’t very good. He and several people he knew from school and Vogue.com designed and made outfits for the teens and children, Isabelle got them access to a honest to goodness portable runway that was often used in photo shoots and real…if not yet very well known…photographers, and when Kurt’s idea was leaked in the office Vogue.com ended up covering it…which led to Tish and Parsons asking if some of their students could design for it as well. When all was said and done, Kurt and Adam figured the majority of what had been raised had come from outside the community and that they had raised enough to cover that years costs for every child who’d lost help from the grant –not just those in the buildings right next to them and Adam’s like they had originally hoped - and put some into a scholarship type fund for future use. And there was interest in making it a yearly thing. Mama and Papa Bertoni were over the moon and Father Franco cried when Kurt asked how find out how to help all the children who were struggling due to the loss of the grant.

Life in the loft was getting worse. Blaine had somehow managed to get accepted into NYADA. Rachel had tried to sign Kurt up for courses, only to throw a huge tantrum which involved the destruction of several items of clothing, school books, art supplies and the old sewing machine Kurt had been using in the loft when she found out Kurt…having been taking a full summer program….had been able to register early and had already been registered for classes and any changes had to be done in person, so she couldn’t actually dictate Kurt’s schedule. Sam was moving in, and possibly Blaine. Not to mention that Santana had sold several items of Kurt’s on Ebay…to cover her part of rent while she was off gallivanting with Brittany. Kurt called his father about that one…and Rachel’s destructive fit. Rachel’s dads sent Kurt a two hundred dollar check and a note that said if he’d been ‘there for her more’ and ‘did what she wanted him to not what he wanted all the time’, she would never have tossed a fit like that…their baby didn’t do things like that. Santana just burned one of Kurt’s favorite sweaters on the fire escape after getting off the phone with Kurt’s dad. Mama Bertoni knit Kurt a sweater to replace the one Santana burnt and offered to let Kurt have her mama’s old sewing machine if he needed one. Kurt kissed her cheek and insisted she keep it if she still used it…his good sewing machine was in Adam’s apartment anyway, as were his mannequins and most his good art supplies. Adam helped him replace the school books he’d wanted to keep.

The final straw, not only to Kurt but Mama Bertoni, was when Rachel attacked Kurt at NYADA. Rachel had decided that her bereavement pass did several things it did not do, because she did not listen when it was explained to her in April. Rachel was certain it turned all her courses from the first semester to As, got her out of her second semester courses all together with all given an A, and covered all those Freshman courses she chose not to take because they would not showcase her talent well enough and would take too much time and be boring and that all those were given an A as well.

The bereavement pass at NYADA simply gave Rachel an extra semester to complete the work for the courses she had been taking, the ability to take the finals in those at the end of that extra semester, and the ability to withdraw from the classes she had been taking without taking a fail…the class could just be erased, basically.

Rachel blamed Kurt for ‘changing’ the ‘rules’ because he wasn’t offered the option. She insisted Kurt had ‘poisoned’ the teachers against her. She accused Kurt of going into professors offices and changing Rachel’s grades. Rachel also accused Kurt of changing the requirements for which classes were required, just to keep Rachel from being a star in ALL her classes and just to keep Rachel from being able to dominate the school. She flew at Kurt with fists flailing when she found out that Kurt was ahead of her in amount of credits and had passed her in dance course levels. Kurt would have fallen down the stairs trying to get away from her if it hadn’t been for Max, one of the Adam’s Apples. Rachel then had the nerve to claim she had done nothing and probably would have gotten away with it except the Dean of Drama and the Dean of Tech were both standing there and saw it for themselves.

Rachel was put on academic probation. Her fathers were called. Kurt’s dad was called. Adam was helping Mama Bertoni bring in groceries when he answered the call from Max, who explained what had happened.

Papa Bertoni had Kurt out of his contract for the loft without any repercussions and he and the rest of the tenants in Adam’s building had Kurt moved out and into an apartment a floor down from Adam before the night was over.

Mama Bertoni also had a nice long ‘discussion’ with Burt on the phone when he called to lecture Kurt on leaving Rachel in a lurch with the loft. Burt showed up in person the next weekend and did a lot of apologizing.

Kurt showed Burt the tree they planted for Finn and sat his dad down by Mama Bertoni for a good chat about healing and grief. Kurt went inside and started to cook, joined by Adam and both the Martins and the Bertoni children and grandchildren, and Martin children and grandchildren. Papa Bertoni went out and got all the tables set up as Mama Bertoni and Burt were finishing their chat. He then took Burt out to the shed and Burt helped put red lights on Finn’s tree…and a string of white lights in honor of Kurt’s mom.

Burt’s face was tear free when Kurt had everyone start bringing out the food. Adam could see the traces of the tears though. Papa Bertoni and Burt were talking cars. Kurt was just sitting next to his dad, leaning against his side. Later Kurt would tease Adam for the tears as he watched them, before kissing him silly and telling and showing Adam how much Kurt adored him. Before that Adam was thanked for his care of Kurt when Burt was failing as a dad and Adam reassured him that Kurt never thought his dad failed him, just that his dad was overcome with grief. They talked about Carole and how she’d been dealing…or not dealing as the case was. They talked about help they could give her. And Adam ordered the biggest arrangement of flowers to have sent to Mama Bertoni that he could afford. He loved where he lived.


End file.
